


fix you

by minachandler



Series: we can just fly away and never look back [2]
Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e04: What to Expect When You're Expecting...an Alien Parasite, F/M, Hullen (Killjoys), Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 11:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minachandler/pseuds/minachandler
Summary: Missing scene from 4x04. Dutch promises to fix Johnny, but he's not buying it - and truthfully she can't exactly blame him, Hullen or not.





	fix you

**Author's Note:**

> So this one is kind of long in the making, really. I've been picking at it for weeks and I'm totally done with it now, lmao. This picks up when Dutch first has a proper conversation with Hullen Johnny. I hope you like. Many thanks to Abbie, aka absentlyabbie, for giving me the inspiration about Johnny's dark side in a tumblr convo. Thanks also to friends for cheering me on when I needed it.
> 
> The title of this fic is of course from the song of the same name by Coldplay.

It used to be that the sound of Johnny’s laugh, always hearty and _real_ and sincere, would be what got Dutch through a rough day. He was her anchor, with a crinkle in the corners of his eyes, that laugh, that smile, always there no matter what.

But when Dutch hears it now, she just feels guilt eating away at whatever is left of her heart because she knows it's not real. His laughter is as rough and hollow as _his_ heart, the Hullen parasites killing his humanity greedily from the inside.

Most of all, though, it pains her to see that Johnny, her dear Johnny, is even a little bit as soulless as the Lady promised her he would be in the Green. And what hits her the hardest is the fact that he's not even all the way there yet.

“If you were my real friend, you never would have left,” he snarls. “And this never would have happened. Is that a lie?”

“No,” Dutch answers. “It's not even the worst thing I've screwed up lately, but I'm gonna fix it. All of it.”

John raises his eyebrows. “Really? You think that you can?”

“Yes.”

The laugh is back, filled with anger and sharp, grating coldness that is nothing like the Johnny Jaqobis she knows and loves.

“I'm sorry, _darling_. But I can tell when you're lying too.” He looks up at her. “What are you hiding, Yalena Yardeen?”

Automatically Dutch folds her arms. “Nothing.”

“You know I remember everything, right?” Johnny says, mimicking her, crossing his arms and tilting his head up to survey her mock-seriously. And it doesn't matter that he's the one sitting on the floor, the prisoner, and Dutch is on her feet, a free woman - she's never felt so powerless in her life. “I know everything. I remember the early days, when you were so lonely you invited the thief who tried to steal your ship to _live_ with you.”

“Johnny, stop,” Dutch says quietly. “Please.”

“I remember our first mission, our first undercover, and how broken you still were. How even then you kept pushing me away because Gods fucking forbid someone get close to you so you can weep about losing them.” He gestures with his hands and sighs dramatically. “And now, how the tables have turned, Miss Yardeen. In the end you were the one who left me.”

“I'm sorry,” Dutch says, voice thick with tears.

“Do you even know how I got hurt so bad that D’av had to turn me Hullen?” Johnny demands. “Your pal Aneela. Yeah. She was - pretending to be you and actually doing a half-decent job of it at first. I only realised who she was when it was too late. And she stabbed me,” Johnny says, banging his fist against his chest, “right in the lung.”

“I didn't know -”

“Of course not. You don't know a lot these days. Zeph patched me up as best she could, which wasn’t all that great, I should add - and _then_ I was stupid enough to try and go after you because after everything I still thought you were worth saving.”

“I know I'm not,” Dutch says quickly. “I've always known that. But you've always tried to prove me wrong.”

“Human me was a sentimental shit, right?”

Dutch takes a deep breath, finding strength from somewhere in the deep recesses of her heart to soldier on. “He's the one that I love. And he’s the one that I know is still in there somewhere.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that.”

But when Johnny meets her eyes, just as Dutch opens her mouth to argue, there's a dangerous glint in them that makes her dread what he's going to say next.

“You kissed me once, remember?”

Dutch doesn't want to tear her eyes away but Johnny’s gaze is burning through her soul, eyes looking green in the light even though they shouldn't be because _her_ Johnny’s eyes are the bluest of blue. (Or at least - they're meant to be.)

“I thought we agreed not to talk about that.” Dutch inhales, then exhales, attempting to steady herself.

Johnny shrugs. “You can't possibly think I care about some promise I made you forever ago, can you?”

“I can't possibly think otherwise,” Dutch counters, and she means it. Then she pauses, turning on her heel, and once Johnny is out of her line of sight it's easier to breathe - a little, anyway. “But even now… I'm sorry I got the wrong message. I really am. I just thought - for a second… that we could work out.”

“Turns out we were only good at pretending to be in love, huh?” Johnny says slowly, but when Dutch turns to face him she finds an unreadable expression on his face.

Dutch tried to hold his gaze but falters; it's too much, all of it, seeing him like this and knowing in her heart that - like most of the bad things that happen around her - this is all her fault.

Still, she says quietly, “I didn't need to pretend.”

And at this Johnny’s eyes scrunch shut suddenly, and he grimaces like he's in pain. But after a second it's like a switch has flicked and Hullen Johnny is back again. “Is this supposed to be your way of getting through to me? By lying to me, right to my face?”

“I'm not lying,” Dutch says hotly. “I made a move on you, you idiot. Why the hells would I do that unless I wanted -”

Again, Dutch falters, because how can she say those words now, of all times? And then Johnny voices her next thoughts almost word-for-word.

“See? You can't even say it. You were drunk. You said so yourself. Of course you didn't want me. Not to mention - you chose my brother over me. Repeatedly.”

That stings, far more than she anticipated. “That's not fair,” Dutch says. “You know that me and D'avin are - complicated.”

He shakes his head. “No, sweetie. It's very simple. You banged my brother. More than once, too, according to your own ship. And I blamed him more than you, really, but that doesn't mean that I -”

“I thought - I thought that you just - didn't want me,” Dutch cuts across him, unable to listen to him talk like that a second longer.

“And that is why I'm the smart one. You, Duchie, are a terrible judge of character.”

“Don't call me that,” she says before she can stop herself.

“Why, does it remind you of the good old days when it was just you and me? Good. Just think for a second. Do you seriously think that whingebag stray you picked up on your wedding night was gonna say yes to a vulnerable woman who was only a couple storeys above rock bottom? Bitch, please. I'm Hullen. Not stupid. I can tell where to draw a line. And human me was a fool, not an idiot.” Dutch’s confusion must show on her face because Johnny raises his eyebrows. “Oh, what, you don't get it?”

‘Give it to me straight, Johnny.”

Suddenly Johnny grins and in that split second Dutch could swear it's that shit-eating smile so reminiscent of her Johnny - but then the light from his eyes disappears. Blue becomes green once more and that sharp, steely glint where the light catches his pupils makes her wince and turn away again.

“You never really knew me at all if you thought I would give _anything_ to you straight.”

“Johnny -”

“Yes,” he interrupts. “The answer is yes. Yes, I had -” he huffs an exasperated sigh and rolls his eyes as if it pains him to say the word “- _feelings_ for you that weren't exactly platonic. And come on. It's not like I was subtle about it either.”

Dutch thinks about their fake-married waltz when they were on Qresh, the fucking ring he put on her finger the very next day. She sees the earnesty in his eyes, the small, knowing smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, the tilt of his head to one side as they both remember times that were - relatively speaking - easier in a lot of ways.

“But I didn't want to take advantage of that. I would never. That wouldn't be fair. Especially since we'd both probably have regretted it in the morning.”

“Maybe,” Dutch says. “But we'll never know now, will we?”

Hullen Johnny is back as he shrugs, holding up his handcuffs. “That depends if you're the kinky type, I guess.”

She shakes her head, not quite believing that they're having this conversation at all. “Why are you even telling me this?”

Johnny just shrugs again. “To get under your skin. Hells if I know. I just want you to let me go.”

“You know I can't do that,” says Dutch.

“Can't or won't?”

“Both,” she answers. “I'm going to fix you, Johnny. If it's the last thing I do, I will make everything right. I'm not going to let you be like this - I'm not going to stand idly by while you lose what made me love you in the first place.”

He sighs in exasperation. “See, this is what I mean. You put me on this… pedestal, like I'm meant to be this saint of unicorns and puppies and I have to be your fucking _light_ like I don't have a dark side of my own.”

“Compared to me -”

“Not everything is about you, you know,” Johnny interrupts.

“I know that,” says Dutch wearily. “But for me - since the moment I met you, Johnny, everything has always been about you. And I know that this isn't the Johnny I know.”

“I got news for you, Dutch. What you're seeing right now - it's still who I am. Because even if you're right and I'm as angelic as you say I am… every light casts a shadow eventually. And this is who I am now.”

“Bullshit. After everything we've been through - you're still more your own person than anyone I've ever known.” She doesn't really intend on echoing his own words; it just comes out, but to her surprise, by the look on his face it gets to him more than she anticipated. Out of nowhere her heart floods with hope, with the impossible possibility that she might be getting through to him. “And you're gonna fight, because that's what you do, and I'm gonna have your back. And after we've cleansed you… if you wanna run -” She halts now because this is their _thing_ , it's always been their thing, between the two of them, and suddenly Johnny can't look her in the face anymore. “If you really want to leave - I won't stop you. Tap my heart.”

Just as abruptly as before, the glimpse of human Johnny is fleeting and his increasingly Hullen self comes to the fore once more.

 “So you're saying I can just… fly away and never look back?” he asks with the beginnings of a smile that's not real and that hurts her somewhere deep in her heart - because she never thought the day would come when Johnny would say that to taunt her.

She can't bring herself to reply, and thankfully her comm link bleeps and she's hearing Pip’s voice in her ear. Dutch walks away, and she wants to turn around and look at him again because she still can't believe this is what everything has come to - but she can't. Not when it pains her in a way she doesn't think she can withstand.

Later, she watches Johnny break his own damn neck and lie lifeless on the floor, his final bitter, cold laughter echoing in her ears, and she realises that he was right all along.

Dutch can’t fix this. She never stood a chance.

 _lights will guide you home_  
and ignite your bones   
and I will try to fix you

**Author's Note:**

> That's it! I would love to know what you make of this fic because it kind of took a lot out of me. Please be kind enough to leave a comment if you enjoyed it, and I hope you have a wonderful day :)


End file.
